Building Homes and Renewing Communities

Vikki Slade Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I am sure that the residents of St Andrews estate are frustrated, but I commend the work of my hon. Friend in highlighting this issue. It is not acceptable for roads to be left unadopted for years and for people to be left in those circumstances. I am happy to arrange a meeting with the relevant Minister to look at how we can support him in his endeavour to deal with this matter.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Communities such as Wimborne, Merley and Bearwood have doubled in size in the past few years, with no extra roads—[Interruption.] It is not funny. The people there have no extra roads, no water treatment plants, no new GPs, and the remaining areas of green belt specifically designated to separate them have disappeared. Their communities are being forced to build thousands more—it is 7,000 a year in Dorset, similar to Essex—but they are not selling. These houses are lying empty, which means that the community infrastructure is not being built, and we have empty homes everywhere. The local population cannot afford them. The social housing providers do not want them, because they are built under old standards. We run the risk of them being filled with holidaymakers. We need a review of this huge housing target, so that it is based on need in the local community, with a requirement for the infrastructure to come first. Can the Secretary of State please help?

[Angela Rayner]

I can honestly feel the hon. Member’s frustration. One of the issues that I picked up when I first became Secretary of State, as I outlined earlier, is that it is not about opposition to new housing, but frustration because of the infrastructure not being there, the form of the houses built and how local people cannot afford them. I have complete sympathy with what the hon. Member is saying. That is why we have been making changes to the national planning policy framework and to how we do building consents, so that we can get these houses built where they are accessible to local people and where developments are contributing to the wider local community, including with services. I am happy to speak to her about the specifics. If there are empty houses that local people cannot get and the infrastructure is not there, I can fully appreciate why people would be frustrated.